Analyses of God beliefs, atheism, religion, faith, miracles, evidence for religious claims, evil and God, arguments for and against God, atheism, agnosticism, the role of religion in society, and related issues.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Here's a write up of some material from Michael Martin that we use in my philosophy of religion course. It gives a fairly lightweight summary of a strategy for proving that God does not exist. Some of the material is rudimentary, but many of the issues are relevant and interesting for our discussions here on the blog:

Can We Prove the Negative? Atheism and the Santa Principle

In the tradition of natural theology, philosophers have long thought about the prospects for drawing reasonable conclusions about what is real or true in this fashion: A successful argument for a claim p will be a set of reasons (different than p) that are true and that when taken jointly would imply the conclusion p to a reasonable person who does not already believe p. The back story is complicated, but the idea is that if Smith is trying to convince Jones to believe p where Jones doesn’t already believe it, then Smith’s job is to present reasons, arguments, evidence, and information relevant to p and in a way that logically supports the truth of p. Then if Jones is reasonable, and if Jones, after considering all of that information, thinks that all of it (or enough to it to do the job) is true, then Jones would also accept p. We think there is sufficient evidence, for example to make it reasonable for a person who considers it in the right light to conclude that smoking causes cancer.

Atheists and theists often disagree about a number of things. The central claim that they diverge on is the claim that God exists. They usually try to resolve those disagreements by means of arguments understood in the sense above. They sometimes think of each other as being irrational because the other refuses to change her mind about the issue. What these disagreements often boil down to is not just stark irrationality on the part of one side or the other. More often there are background assumptions, evidential claims, rules of inference, or questions of epistemic justification that they diverge on. That is, their disagreement about God has more to do with different views about other non-God issues.

Interestingly, this model of how a disagreement can be resolved by successful argument rarely if ever actually describes the sort of process any of us, theists and atheists included, undergo to arrive at our beliefs. People rarely just change their minds after a sober and objective period of reflection on the evidence. The way we acquire our beliefs and our behavior with regard to defending them or sustaining them is much more complicated, neurological, and organic. What does happen is that your belief structure seems to make gradual shifts and each shift in attitude about one matter, especially if it is important, ripples outward and has an effect on lots of other beliefs, dispositions, and emotional reactions. To make matters more complicated, we aren’t very good judges of what we believe, or why we believe it. Priming studies, in psychology, for example, show that neurological processes are set in motion towards a reaction long before we are consciously aware that we have seen or heard something consciously. In one study, college men were shown a number of pictures of different women and asked to judge which ones they thought were more attractive. Unbeknownst to the men, the researchers made sure that in some of the pictures the women’s eyes were dilated and some were not. Eye dilation is one physiological reaction indicating emotional openness, sexual attraction, and intimacy. The results showed that the men tended to pick out the women with dilated eyes as the more attractive ones. But when asked why they picked those women, they had no idea that the eye dilation had anything to do with their choices. They would confabulate theories and elaborate answers about having a preference for certain hair colors, or women looking like someone, and so on. But the single most predictive factor for their choices was eye dilation. These studies show how little we know about our own beliefs, and the reasons that we have them.

Nevertheless, we can aspire to the ideal standard of listening to arguments for opposing viewpoints about God and other matters with an open mind, considering them thoughtfully, and then objectively assessing the truth of that evidence, and then being prepared to accept the rational implications of that evidence. We should accept those conclusions that are best supported by the evidence, even if we typically don’t.

So what’s the rational thing to do when you hear a successful argument? The answer is simple: accept the conclusion. Put more formally as we would in a critical thinking class, if a reasonable person who does not already believe p:

understands and believes that all of the premises in the argument for p are true.

understands and believes that the premises when taken jointly imply p

then, that person is rationally committed to believing p.

So under what circumstances are we being irrational then? This turns out to be a very complicatd question. A flagrant case of irrationality and one that would produce a lot of cognitive dissonance in most of us would be a case where we understand and believe all of the evidence that has been offered for a conclusion, and we understand and believe that the all of that evidence deductively or inductively implies that p is true, but we refuse to accept it. In practice, it is rarely obvious to an individual that he is guilty of doing this. He will often offer rationalizations or explanations that seem to lessen the cognitive dissonance. He will explain away the apparent strength of the evidence for p or produce other mitigating considerations that seem to diminish the powerful reasons in favor of p on the one hand, and he belief that p is not true on the other. But sometimes, when we are being careful and very honest with ourselves, we can catch ourselves making this sort of mistake. If the matter is weighty and we are emotionally invested on the wrong side of the argument, it can take a great deal of courage and intellectual integrity to face and accept the unappealing conclusion. Being able to recognize when we are being irrational and then taking steps to fix it are valuable cognitive virtues to cultivate for a number of reasons.

But the believer in God and the disbeliever often have rational disagreements too. That is, they can have legitimate differences of view that do not clearly reduce to stark irrationality on one side or the other. What are the sources of these rational disagreements? They often differ about which premises are true. They can also disagree about whether or not the premises jointly imply the conclusion.If these are empirical disagreements, about whether or not it is possible to be a moral person without believing in God, for instance, we can go and look and settle it. Or if the disagreement is over whether evolution actually happens, we can look at examples in nature to find out the facts. If this disagreement is not empirical, and is more conceptual or abstract, the differences can be harder to identify and resolve. But thoughtful discussion can often help both parties make a lot of progress.

One point of contention about atheism involves the prospects for ever giving a successful argument for the non-existence of something. That is, many people doubt that while we can know and prove that some things are real, it is not possible to prove that something doesn't exist. As they see it, you cannot prove a negative because: 1. you have never managed to look everywhere. Since we have finite time and resources, there is always somewhere we have not looked. 2. Lacking evidence that shows something is real does not imply that it isn't. That might just show that you don't have the evidence. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as they say. 3. You could always be wrong. Humans are fallible, they overstate things, they leap to conclusions. And the atheist who claims to know that God isn't real is overstepping the bounds of what the available evidence could show us. 4. We just don't know what sorts of things are out there, or what God might be like. If God is something unlike anything we have imagined or investigated, then it would be a mistake to conclude that he isn't real. If there is a God, his nature and properties would be far beyond our powers of comprehension. So we wouldn't be able to even get our finite minds around him. Failing to comprehend something shouldn't be grounds for rejecting its possibility or its existence.

There are a number of problems with this "You Can't Prove a Negative" view. And they are problems that indicate the route that many atheists have taken to make their case. The first problem is that it is reasonable to conclude that there are many things that do not exist. You most likely believe that unicorns, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, elves, currently living dinosaurs, and Bigfoot, or some other creatures are not real. In the case of some creatures that have been alleged to be real, the existence of confessions and alternative explanations make it particularly easy to believe that there is no such thing. We have learned that the first famous Loch Ness Monster photograph, taken by Christian Spurling, was a hoax to trick a London newspaper. Some members of the group have confessed that the Patterson film footage of Bigfoot was faked as well. Crop circles, we have discovered, were the work of a couple of enthusiastic skeptics who mashed down the wheat in amazing patterns during the night. None of these confessions proves the negative in a strong sense. The Loch Ness monster could be real and the picture was faked. But if those pieces of evidence previously played a significant role in one's evidence for the creature, undermining them may be enough to topple the justification for them. And they suggest alternative explanations for many other pieces of alleged evidence that should be considered carefully.

The second problem with the Can't Prove a Negative view is that it is (probably) accurate to describe your view of many other gods as atheism. That is, you are already an reasonable atheist about lots of other gods. It has been proven to your satisfaction, or you have evidence or considerations that lead you to reasonably conclude that many allegedly real gods are not real. Consider: Anansi, West African god who is brings rain, stops fires, and performs tricks; Brekyirihunuade is the highest god in the religion of the Akan people. He knows and sees everything; Cghene is the supreme God of the Isoko people of southern Nigeria. He created the world and all peoples; !Xu is the central benevolent and omnipotent god of the bushmen of southern Africa. He is the sky god to whom the souls of the dead go; Gefjun, the Norse goddess of fertility and agriculture; Sobek, the Egyptian crocodile god of water. And there are many others. In fact, there are over 2,800 listed here.

If it is accurate to characterize your attitude towards Gefjun as this: "Gefjun isn't real." then either it has been proven to your satisfaction that she isn't real, or you believe it unjustifiably and you should be an agnostic about her existence (and all 2,800 of the others.) When atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens say that they are just atheists about one more god than you are, this seems to be the point they are making. They have simply extended the reasoning that led you to think that those weren't real to one more god. More importantly, you don’t believe that any of those beings are real. And you think it is perfectly reasonable to be an atheist about them. So it’s a mistake to say that negative existential claims about God or gods aren’t reasonable and can’t be proven.

Some philosophers like Michael Martin, Michael Scriven, Theodore Drange, Nicholas Everitt, J.L. Mackie, and others have given analyses of the circumstances under which is is reasonable for us to conclude that something is not real. Martin, taking the lead from Scriven, believes that we can form a general policy that describes these cases where we believe that some X does not exist. We can call it the Santa Principle:

A person is justified in believing that X does not exist if all of these conditions are met:

the area where evidence would appear, if there were any, has been comprehensively examined, and

all of the available evidence that X exists is inadequate, and

X is the sort of entity that, if X exists, then it would show.

That is, you should conclude that X isn't real when you've looked long and hard in the areas where evidence would be if there was any, and none of the evidence has been strong enough to justify believing, and finally, the thing we are looking for is the sort of thing that would appear in some way, or manifest itself in a way that we could recognize.

So now we have seen that it is possible to prove the negative, and that you already believe many negative existential claims justifiably. And we have a rough idea of what it might take to prove it. The question that remains is, "are these conditions met with regard to God?" Many philosophers think that they are. Let's consider the conditions one at a time. Is it the case that the area where evidence would appear for God, if there were any, has been comprehensively examined? We are using "evidence" broadly here to include a priori or conceptual considerations, arguments, empirical evidence from biology, physics, and cosmology, and so on. Philosophers have considered countless versions of the teleological, cosmological, ontological arguments, the argument from miracles, intelligent design, the problem of evil, faith, and on and on. The topic has been one of the most heavily debated and carefully considered in the discipline for more than 2,000 years. God may be the sort of being that is difficult to identify or conceptualize, but it should not be said that we have not been doing our very best to answer the question.

Is it the case that of the available evidence--the arguments, reasons, empirical considerations, a priori analyses, and so on--is inadequate to show that God exists? Does that evidence, on the whole, suggest that God is real or not? By and large, the consensus among philosophers (both believers and non-believers) is that none of the arguments for God's existence succeed. It is also clear that the majority of philosophers who are familiar with these arguments do not believe. A recent Philosophy Studies survey reported that 73% of philosophers accept or lean towards atheism, while only 15% accept or lean towards theism. (12% reported "other.") Phil Papers Survey It would also appear that most people have serious doubts about the prospect of giving anything like a proof or successful argument for the existence of God. So it would appear that the second condition is met. In his book Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, where Michael Martin presents the Santa principle he systematically presents and analyzes all of the best current arguments for the existence of God, and finds them all wanting. Scriven, Drange, Everitt, Sobell, Mackie, Oppy, Gale, Nielsen, Fales, and many others have gone through those arguments too and they all find serious objections to all of them. Some theistic philosophers like Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, William Lane Craig, and William Alston disagree, however. They believe that there are successful arguments for God's existence. Judging from the Phil Papers Survey, their view appears to be in the majority, but there is a serious and interesting set of disagreements between them and the former set of philosophers. There will be some people, therefore, who will argue that the second condition in the Santa Principle has not been met. The available evidence for God's existence is adequate, as they see it. So if they are right, the Santa Principle will not apply to God and we should not conclude that there is no God on its basis.

What about the third condition? Is it the case that God, if he exists, is the sort of being who would be detectable, comprehensible, arguable, or manifest to us in some way? If there is a God, would we be able to know it? To answer that question, let's consider another question: if God exists and he has infinite power and knowledge as he is often alleged, would he be able to make his existence manifest to us if he chose? Would it be within God's power to show himself to us? I think most people's answer, believers and non-believers, is yes. God appeared to Moses in the Burning Bush, Allah spoke to Muhammed in a vision, God interacted with Adam and Eve, Jesus is thought to have communicated God's existence and message to people. If God could do those things, it seems that he would be able to do even more to make his existence apparent if he so chose. At this point in the discussion, many people will remark that God would be an extraordinary being with properties far beyond our ability to comprehend. So we should hesitate to infer his non-existence from his non-obviousness, as it were, to us. These are legitimate concerns. Let us return to them in a moment. The question will be, what is the appropriate sort of cognitive attitude for us to take towards the existence of non-existence of things that we cannot, by hypothesis, understand?

It is worth noting that many people, including many believers, think that God's existence is manifest in the world around us, in our minds, in our prayers, and so on. It turns out that it is hard to construct a successful argument from these considerations, but the point is these believers do think that God's existence is the sort of thing that is manifest or discoverable by us. So if it is discoverable, and we have made exhaustive inquiries into the realms where we would expect to make that discovery, and we have come up empty handed, then it appears that the Santa Principle applies to God and we should conclude that he does not exist. At least, this is what the long list of atheological philosophers above think we should conclude.

Put more schematically, we can ask, is God like Santa? Those philosophers would argue that we have a successful argument (in the sense of "successful argument" from above).

If conditions A,B, and C, are met concerning an entity, then it is reasonable to conclude that no such entity exists.

Conditions A,B, and C are met concerning God.

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that God does not exist.

Now let us return to the "But God's nature is a mystery," response we briefly considered above. Several claims are often made about our inability to understand God, and these considerations might lead us to think that the third "showing" condition is not met. Or they might bear on the first or second conditions. God’s real nature is vastly beyond our conceptual abilities. So our attempts to understand God’s nature, motives, plans, and existence are handicapped by our limited conceptual tools. Even though the arguments for God’s existence seem to fail, he could or does exist in some unconceived fashion. A related claim that is often made is God’s goodness is so far beyond anything we can imagine, that what appears to be evil is actually good and part of God’s plan. The problem is our limited intellects, not the impossibility of God’s existence.

What can we say about these points about our ignorance or limitations? Some of these points are correct: There are mysteries, we have our limits. But now the question is, what attitude is reasonable to take towards the existence or non-existence of things that are at or beyond the limits of our abilities? One point seems to be clear. The mystery response appears to undermine theism. If there exists something that is ex hypothesi beyond our capacity to understand, then it cannot be reasonable to form any positive belief about it. That is, it is inconsistent to simultaneously assert that it is reasonable to believe in the existence of something AND it is beyond our comprehension. So the views that God is mysterious and God is real do not sit easily together.

How do we ordinarily treat similar hypothetical and incomprehensible possibilities? It is possible that God is the sort of thing that cannot, in principle, be grasped by human understanding. The universe could be populated with any number of things like that. It could be that any of the thousands of gods on our list from above, such as Anansi, Brekyirihunuade, Cghene, !Xu, and Gefjun are real, but their natures are beyond our comprehension. The problem is that you probably don't think that they are real. Suppose that you expressed your doubts about the reality of Gefjun, or Paluga to a devoted follower. And in response, she said, "But Paluga's infinite nature is beyond comprehension. You can't possibly think that your finite human doubts make it unreasonable to believe in Paluga's existence." You probably wouldn't be convinced by this defense. In fact, you probably wouldn't even elevate your view of Paluga from atheist to agnostic because it is possible that Paluga's nature is too far beyond your powers of understanding for you to draw a reasonable conclusion. It is possible that any of these other supernatural beings that you think aren't real (and many more we haven't thought of) could have natures that are beyond human comprehension, but in their case, that possibility isn’t suficient to lead you to be a serious agnostic about them. You still don’t think they are real, even though they might exist out there somewhere that we haven’t investigated yet, and even though they might have natures that vastly exceed our capacity to undertand. So either your atheism about them is unjustified because you should be agnostic about all of them 2,800 of them, and God is just one more supernatural hypotheses that you are waiting to draw a conclusion about, or you are reasonably atheistic about them and God falls into the same category. At least, that is the situation that suggested by the application of the Santa Principle. Atheism about all of these beings, including God, is reasonable. It's justified. If we know that there is no Santa on the basis of these considerations, then ceteris paribus, we know that there is no God.

But why isn't agnosticism the reasonable attitude to take? Isn't the safe, reasonable, and thoughtful attitude to take that we should suspend judgment about God, and the infinitely long list of other things that could be like this? Atheists who are defending the Santa Principle argument, call them Santa Claus Atheists, do not think that agnosticism is not reasonable here. It isn’t reasonable to be agnostic about Santa, the current existence of dinosaurs, the Tooth Fairy, unicorns, and Sobek. So it isn't reasonable to be agnostic about God. Once a certain threshold of investigation has been met, it is no longer reasonable to believe in X, or even to be agnostic about X. This is not to say that we must be dogmatic, or unrelenting about this conclusion. To be reasonable, we must always be willing to consider the evidence and be prepared to revise our views in the light of new information. So the atheism conclusion is defeasible. We have proof that there is no God, they argue; it is justified. But we can change our minds should that become necessary. (One interesting question to ask is, what sort of evidence, hypothetically, would prove it?)

14 comments:

Matthew Howery
said...

I've noticed that nearly every discussion for me with theists are long and involved, and I try as methodically as possible (with my severely limited arsenal of "weapons") to disprove each idea thrown my way.

Some theists argue from personal experience, some from a more theological perspective, still other's I haven't quite identified what their argument was (not an insult to them but, rather, a recognition of my ignorance). How they all ended, however, was remarkably similar.

"Well, that's why it's called faith."

The F word seems to be the be-all, end-all in the lay theist view as far as discussion on the existance of god is concerned. I wonder why this is.

It's possible to get a theist to agree that his/her view is irrational, but then making the connection to their epistemological standards that they use to define every other belief, idea or experience in their lives is nearly impossible.

"Ok, my belief in god is irrational. So what?"

I believe you've written about this before, but I shudder to think what would happen to the court systems if people used this same irrationality in deciding innocence or guilt of their fellow human beings. We can easily see how this lack of consistent application of epistemological standards leads people to all sorts of different beliefs.

There are many things that, as humans, we'd like to be true. Unfortunately, that confirmation bias leads people to believe things without checking for alternative explanations, counter-evidence, etc.

I don't think term "Mind Virus" is far off here. When peole allow one part of their life to be dominated by an irrational, illogical idea "faith" it spreads to other, much more dangereous areas of thier lives. Health, prejudice, violence etc.

My question is, how can we explain to a lay person that "irrational" IS wrong. How do you cross the bridge from the things they contemplate empirically (Santa) to the thing they don't (god)?

DM is an atheist! Repent DM! Jesus will condemn you to Hellfire unless you change your ways! You are sending souls to Hell! How? Why? You don't shine your light, that's why. Forgive seventy times seven, or go to Hell! Jesus will say to you on Judgment Day, depart, I never knew you!

Thanks for a very insightful post. I consider myself an agnostic atheist which means that I don't believe any of the 2800 plus gods that men have postulated exist but I can't say for certain that no god of any description might exist. Is that essentially what you are saying in your last paragraph?

Also, I recently came across the book by Richard Burton, On Being Certain. Burton is a neurologist. He has some very interesting things to say about how we "know" certain things. Are you familiar with the book?

Thanks Ken. I think that for any given god hypothesis or proposal you are either an agnostic or an atheist. I don't know how you could be both given that they take exclusive positions. And I don't think that's what I'm getting at in the last paragraph. The frequent claim: "You and I can't prove with certainty that there is no God. Therefore, we should be a) agnostic, or b) that leaves room open for faith.

I have tried to show here and in previous posts first that there are a number of deductive atheological arguments that purport to prove that God is impossible. So insofar as they are successful, then we have certainty, or as much as we get for anything, that God doesn't exist. So that undermines the claim. Second, even if we don't think those disproofs are successful, it is inconsistent, and capricious to apply the "No belief is justified unless it can be proven with absolute, deductive certainty" standard. We haven't meet that standard for very many beliefs at all. So to adopt agnosticism on the basis of that criticism/standard is misguided, and arbitrary.

You know, DM makes such a compelling case, I think I might be convinced. And it's especially effective, I find, when people write to me IN ALL CAPS AND USE LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!! I FIND THAT THAT HELPS BE BELIEVE STUFF THAT I AM SKEPTICAL OF!!

My book is out:

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Atheism

Author:

Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rochester. Teaching at CSUS since 1996. My main area of research and publication now is atheism and philosophy of religion. I am also interested in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and rational decision theory/critical thinking.

Quotes:

"Science. It works, bitches."

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time. But he loves you! He loves you and he needs money!"George Carlin 1937 - 2008

Many Paths, No God.

I don't go to church, I AM a church, for fuck's sake. I'm MINISTRY. --Al Jourgensen

Every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, “It is a matter of faith, and above reason.”- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

If life evolved, then there isn't anything left for God to do.

The universe is not fine-tuned for humanity. Humanity is fine-tuned to the universe. Victor Stenger

Skeptical theists choose to ride the trolley car of skepticism concerning the goods that God would know so as to undercut the evidential argument from evil. But once on that trolley car it may not be easy to prevent that skepticism from also undercutting any reasons they may suppose they have for thinking that God will provide them and the worshipful faithful with life everlasting in his presence. William Rowe

Unless you're one of those Easter-bunny vitalists who believes that personality results from some unquantifiable divine spark, there's really no alternative to the mechanistic view of human nature. Peter Watts

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. E.O. Wilson

Creating humans who could understand the contrast between good and evil without subjecting them to eons of horrible suffering would be an utterly inconsequential matter for an omnipotent being. MM

The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second most important moral principle for all the generations of humanity? It would be so easy to improve upon the 10 Commandments. How about "Try not to deep fry all of your food"? Sam Harris

Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody--not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms--had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would think--though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one--that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great

We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true--that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great

If atheism is a religion, then not playing chess is a hobby.

"Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything--anything--be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in." Sam Harris, The End of Faith, 36.

"Only a tiny fraction of corpsesfossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water." Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 127.

One cannot take, "believing in X gives me hope, makes me moral, or gives me comfort," to be a reason for believing X. It might make me moral if I believe that I will be shot the moment I do something immoral, but that doesn't make it possible for me to believe it, or to take its effects on me as reasons for thinking it is true. Matt McCormick

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Top Ten Myths about Belief in God

1. Myth: Without God, life has no meaning.

There are 1.2 billion Chinese who have no predominant religion, and 1 billion people in India who are predominantly Hindu. And 65% of Japan's 127 million people claim to be non-believers. It is laughable to suggest that none of these billions of people are leading meaningful lives.

2. Myth: Prayer works.

Numerous studies have now shown that remote, blind, inter-cessionary prayer has no effect whatsoever of the health or well-being of subject's health, psychological states, or longevity. Furthermore, we have no evidence to support the view that people who wish fervently in their heads for things that they want get those things at any higher rate than people who do not.

3. Myth: Atheists are less decent, less moral, and overall worse people than believers.

There are hundreds of millions of non-believers on the planet living normal, decent, moral lives. They love their children, care about others, obey laws, and try to keep from doing harm to others just like everyone else. In fact, in predominately non-believing countries such as in northern Europe, measures of societal health such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, per capita income, education, homicide, suicide, gender equality, and political coercion are better than they are in believing societies.

4. Myth: Belief in God is compatible with the descriptions, explanations and products of science.

In the past, every supernatural or paranormal explanation of phenomena that humans believed turned out to be mistaken; science has always found a physical explanation that revealed that the supernatural view was a myth. Modern organisms evolved from lower life forms, they weren't created 6,000 years ago in the finished state. Fever is not caused by demon possession. Bad weather is not the wrath of angry gods. Miracle claims have turned out to be mistakes, frauds, or deceptions. So we have every reason to conclude that science will continue to undermine the superstitious worldview of religion.

5. Myth: We have immortal souls that survive the death of the body.

We have mountains of evidence that makes it clear that our consciousness, our beliefs, our desires, our thoughts all depend upon the proper functioning of our brains our nervous systems to exist. So when the brain dies, all of these things that we identify with the soul also cease to exist. Despite the fact that billions of people have lived and died on this planet, we do not have a single credible case of someone's soul, or consciousness, or personality continuing to exist despite the demise of their bodies. Allegations of spirit chandlers, psychics, ghost stories, and communications with the dead have all turned out to be frauds, deceptions, mistakes, and lies.

6. Myth: If there is no God, everything is permitted. Only belief in God makes people moral.

Consider the billions of people in China, India, and Japan above. If this claim was true, none of them would be decent moral people. So Ghandi, the Buddha, and Confucius, to name only a few were not moral people on this view, not to mention these other famous atheists: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, John Stuart Mill, Galileo, George Bernard Shaw, Gloria Steinam, James Madison, John Adams, and so on.

7. Myth: Believing in God is never a root cause of significant evil.

The counter examples of cases where it was someone's belief in God that was the direct justification for their perpetrated horrendous evils on humankind are too numerous to mention.

8. Myth: The existence of God would explain the origins of the universe and humanity.

All of the questions that allegedly plague non-God attempts to explain our origins--why are we here, where are we going, what is the point of it all, why is the universe here--still apply to the faux explanation of God. The suggestion that God created everything does not make it any clearer to us where it all came from, how he created it, why he created it, where it isall going. In fact, it raises even more difficult mysteries: how did God, operating outside the confines of space, time, and natural law "create" or "build" a universe that has physical laws? We have no precedent and maybe no hope of answering or understanding such a possibility. What does it mean to say that some disembodied, spiritual being who knows everything and has all power, "loves" us, or has thoughts, or goals, or plans? How could such a being have any sort of personal relationship with beings like us?

9. Myth: Even if it isn't true, there's no harm in my believing in God anyway.

People's religious views inform their voting, how they raise their children, what they think is moral and immoral, what laws and legislation they pass, who they are friends and enemies with, what companies they invest in, where they donate to charities, who they approve and disapprove of, who they are willing to kill or tolerate, what crimes they are willing to commit, and which wars they are willing to fight. How could any reasonable person think that religious beliefs are insignificant.

10: Myth: There is a God.

Common Criticisms of Atheism (and Why They’re Mistaken)

1. You can’t prove atheism.You can never prove a negative, so atheism requires as much faith as religion.

Atheists are frequently accosted with this accusation, suggesting that in order for non-belief to be reasonable, it must be founded on deductively certain grounds. Many atheists within the deductive atheology tradition have presented just those sorts of arguments, but those arguments are often ignored. But more importantly, the critic has invoked a standard of justification that almost none of our beliefs meet. If we demand that beliefs are not justified unless we have deductive proof, then all of us will have to throw out the vast majority of things we currently believe—oxygen exists, the Earth orbits the Sun, viruses cause disease, the 2008 summer Olympics were in China, and so on. The believer has invoked one set of abnormally stringent standards for the atheist while helping himself to countless beliefs of his own that cannot satisfy those standards. Deductive certainty is not required to draw a reasonable conclusion that a claim is true.

As for requiring faith, is the objection that no matter what, all positions require faith?Would that imply that one is free to just adopt any view they like?Religiousness and non-belief are on the same footing?(they aren’t).If so, then the believer can hardly criticize the non-believer for not believing. Is the objection that one should never believe anything on the basis of faith?Faith is a bad thing?That would be a surprising position for the believer to take, and, ironically, the atheist is in complete agreement.

2. The evidence shows that we should believe.

If in fact there is sufficient evidence to indicate that God exists, then a reasonable person should believe it. Surprisingly, very few people pursue this line as a criticism of atheism. But recently, modern versions of the design and cosmological arguments have been presented by believers that require serious consideration. Many atheists cite a range of reasons why they do not believe that these arguments are successful. If an atheist has reflected carefully on the best evidence presented for God’s existence and finds that evidence insufficient, then it’s implausible to fault them for irrationality, epistemic irresponsibility, or for being obviously mistaken.Given that atheists are so widely criticized, and that religious belief is so common and encouraged uncritically, the chances are good that any given atheist has reflected more carefully about the evidence.

3. You should have faith.

Appeals to faith also should not be construed as having prescriptive force the way appeals to evidence or arguments do. The general view is that when a person grasps that an argument is sound, that imposes an epistemic obligation of sorts on her to accept the conclusion. One person’s faith that God exists does not have this sort of inter-subjective implication. Failing to believe what is clearly supported by the evidence is ordinarily irrational. Failure to have faith that some claim is true is not similarly culpable. At the very least, having faith, where that means believing despite a lack of evidence or despite contrary evidence is highly suspect. Having faith is the questionable practice, not failing to have it.

4. Atheism is bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing.

These accusations have been dealt with countless times. But let’s suppose that they are correct. Would they be reasons to reject the truth of atheism? They might be unpleasant affects, but having negative emotions about a claim doesn’t provide us with any evidence that it is false. Imagine upon hearing news about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki someone steadfastly refused to believe it because it was bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing. Suppose we refused to believe that there is an AIDS epidemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people in Africa on the same grounds.

5.Atheism is bad for you.Some studies in recent years have suggested that people who regularly attend church, pray, and participate in religious activities are happier, live longer, have better health, and less depression.

First, these results and the methodologies that produced them have been thoroughly criticized by experts in the field.Second, it would be foolish to conclude that even if these claims about quality of life were true, that somehow shows that there is theism is correct and atheism is mistaken.What would follow, perhaps, is that participating in social events like those in religious practices are good for you, nothing more.There are a number of obvious natural explanations.Third, it is difficult to know the direction of the causal arrow in these cases.Does being religious result in these positive effects, or are people who are happier, healthier, and not depressed more inclined to participate in religions for some other reasons?Fourth, in a number of studies atheistic societies like those in northern Europe scored higher on a wide range of society health measures than religious societies.

Given that atheists make up a tiny proportion of the world’s population, and that religious governments and ideals have held sway globally for thousands of years, believers will certainly lose in a contest over “who has done more harm,” or “which ideology has caused more human suffering.”It has not been atheism because atheists have been widely persecuted, tortured, and killed for centuries nearly to the point of extinction.

Sam Harris has argued that the problem with these regimes has been that they became too much like religions.“Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag, and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”

7.Atheists are harsh, intolerant, and hateful of religion.

Sam Harris has advocated something he calls “conversational intolerance.”For too long, a confusion about religious tolerance has led people to look the other way and say nothing while people with dangerous religious agendas have undermined science, the public good, and the progress of the human race.There is no doubt that people are entitled to read what they choose, write and speak freely, and pursue the religions of their choice.But that entitlement does not guarantee that the rest of us must remain silent or not verbally criticize or object to their ideas and their practices, especially when they affect all of us.Religious beliefs have a direct affect on who a person votes for, what wars they fight, who they elect to the school board, what laws they pass, who they drop bombs on, what research they fund (and don’t), which social programs they fund (and don’t), and a long list of other vital, public matters.Atheists are under no obligation to remain silent about those beliefs and practices that urgently need to be brought into the light and reasonably evaluated.

Real respect for humanity will not be found by indulging your neighbor’s foolishness, or overlooking dangerous mistakes.Real respect is found in disagreement.The most important thing we can do for each other is disagree vigorously and thoughtfully so that we can all get closer to the truth.

8.Science is as much a religious ideology as religion is.

At their cores, religions and science have a profound difference.The essence of religion is sustaining belief in the face of doubts, obeying authority, and conforming to a fixed set of doctrines.By contrast, the most important discovery that humans have ever made is the scientific method.The essence of that method is diametrically opposed to religious ideals:actively seek out disconfirming evidence.The cardinal virtues of the scientific approach are to doubt, analyze, critique, be skeptical, and always be prepared to draw a different conclusion if the evidence demands it.